pitdiver
Member
I work in a Supermarket and have done for quite a few years. Regarding staying open late, pointless particularly on a Saturday evening. Quite easily close at 1800hrs.
there is a legitimate concern that they stand to lose significant business of larger shops open for longer hours.
I have absolutely zero evidence to back it up - however I’d agree with you. It doesn’t seem to make any difference.I'd be really interested to know if the evidence in Scotland supports that fear, or not. I suspect not, but that is just my gut instinct and there's no knowledge to base it on.
In Scotland we have never had Sunday trading laws and was very surprised when I found out there was such a thing in England. Why do they have such laws down south is it because English people are more religious than Scots?
Off the top of my head the regulations in Scotland were left up to each Regional Council (as was) who in effect chose to not impose any restrictions. Whereas in England, it was an act of parliament, with prominent religious support. At the time, I understand many shops traded illegally anyway, with any fines being significantly less than the additional profit generated.
Plenty of supermarkets will have flouted the act in recent weeks/months.
The previous SUnday Trading Act allowed all shops to open on Sundays but restricted the type of goods that could be sold. This led to the farcical situation where it was legal to sell a pornographic magazine but not a bible.
I don't think plenty of supermarkets have flouted the law in recent weeks. Morrisons said that they were going to open longer hours on Sundays during the absolute height of panic buying but I'm not sure this actually happened. Asda, Sainsbury's and Tesco certainly haven't flouted the law.
The previous SUnday Trading Act allowed all shops to open on Sundays but restricted the type of goods that could be sold. This led to the farcical situation where it was legal to sell a pornographic magazine but not a bible.
I don't think plenty of supermarkets have flouted the law in recent weeks. Morrisons said that they were going to open longer hours on Sundays during the absolute height of panic buying but I'm not sure this actually happened. Asda, Sainsbury's and Tesco certainly haven't flouted the law.
Perhaps not overtly, but I know there have been large supermarkets which have opened their tills at 9.30. Again, the chances of the store manager being prosecuted for such actions are vanishingly small.
Because I like considering things like 'unexpected consequences' I often wondered whether my local Tesco, a 24 hour store on weekdays, with a closing time of midnight on Saturday night, allowed any transaction through the tills even seconds after the midnight hour, but I wasn't prepared to test it out myself. Not great to find your weekly shop rejected at that unholy hour!As mentioned upthread I work for a large supermarket. Our tills WILL NOT work before 1000hrs on Sundays. The local management have no control over that time. However we do operate a browsing hour for Key and Emergency Workers.
If they were really worried about that they could invest in dynamic pricing by time of day, using electronic shelf edges. The cost of doing that must still be higher than any gains from charging higher prices, then.
If you wanted to provide for those who do want to keep the day special, you could legislate to ban companies forcing any member of staff from working on that day. They'd get enough volunteers if the pay was good enough.
Why not? That's like claiming that minimum wages are unenforceable. Enforcement of that is brutal once a case is exposed, though admittedly investigation could be rather better. I think that what you mean is that it would be unpopular with the business lobby.You'd never be able to enforce that - at least in the current climate where the numbers of low-skilled workers applying for retail jobs is so much greater than the numbers of jobs available and it's relatively easy to give employees zero-hours contracts. People are going to do almost whatever their employers want because they know that if they don't work on Sundays, there are dozens of job applicants who will gladly take their place. It's not a good situation but it's where we're at.
I work in a Supermarket and have done for quite a few years. Regarding staying open late, pointless particularly on a Saturday evening. Quite easily close at 1800hrs.
In Scotland we have never had Sunday trading laws and was very surprised when I found out there was such a thing in England. Why do they have such laws down south is it because English people are more religious than Scots?
I mean as a shopper I'll gladly trade the fact that you can't buy alcohol before 10am or after 10pm in Scotland for the fact the shops are not madhouses on a Sunday afternoon like in England.
Personally, I'd gladly trade not being able to buy alcohol at those times - especially after 10pm - even without getting anything at all in return.